


Balsam and Ash

by missmollyetc



Series: Strong Bones [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 14:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23074213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmollyetc/pseuds/missmollyetc
Summary: We must all start as we mean to go on.
Series: Strong Bones [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722424
Comments: 12
Kudos: 92





	Balsam and Ash

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to thefourthvine for her excellent beta! She is, as always, a wonderful help. Sorry about the feelings! Title from Dessa's ["Poor Atlas"](https://youtu.be/SJ-lIEzZWRQ)

Obi-Wan had discovered that the perfect time to finish maintenance on his twin moisture vaporators was between the dawning of the two suns, when there was light enough to work but not enough to burn if one stayed out for any length of time. It was almost like a day planetside on Coruscant, although admittedly without the need for heavy atmospheric scrubbers. He closed the chassis on the main pump/CPU and brushed sand from its hinges.

It hadn’t been difficult to code the vaporators, nor to clean and refit the underground reservoir for use again. Obi-Wan turned and sat with his back against the pump, in between two of the three support struts. He felt his shoulders threatening to slump and straightened his spine, but then he paused.

In front of him lurked his little duracrete house. The steading he’d taken over had been abandoned after a dust worm infestation. Who was there to remark on his posture now? A general never loosened his spine, but he was most certainly dishonorably discharged. A Jedi never forgot his decorum, but had courtesy saved anyone? Had Ana—any youngling been spared out of politeness?

He turned his head and let his shoulders curl as they willed. Across the Wastes, he could see a womp rat scurry over a dune. It truly was amazing how far one could see in his lonely bit of nothing. The horizon stretched above and before him, and the slightest movement inevitably drew the eye amongst all that empty landscape. He could sit and watch his own footsteps disappear into the wind. Nothing yet had goaded him into action but his own need to use the fresher, or the rumble of his stomach, or the daily alarm he’d set to observe the Lars-Whitesun farm from a secure distance.

It was, possibly, a moment to be grateful. “The distillation of need shows its falsity before the Will of the Force,” as Master Lroke Bentan had written, and in a way he could see what she’d meant. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and rubbed his hands across his bearded cheeks. Sand fell in little flurries into the folds of his outer robe. He leaned his head back against the vaporator and felt the heat of the day begin to prickle his skin; the second sun would be rising soon. He coughed a chuckle and crossed his arms.

Not such a shock, if he thought about it, that he wound up a farmer on a dustball outside the very back of the beyond. Hadn’t the Order intended him for just such a life? The Will of the Force had sent him to Bandomeer, and he’d defied it long enough. Perhaps that was where he had gone so very wrong, trying to raise a youngling rather than grow mushrooms. Well, he would not make that mistake twice.

After all, what was he to the Force? What were any of them? A tree. A being. A star. As Master Lth had said, “Energy in the Force has no purpose. It is the Will of the Force that shapes its actions, and the true Jedi seeks to understand that which zie cannot control. To demand our purpose is to usurp destiny.”

Above him, the vaporator shivered as its heat sensors came online. He’d hated that text as a youngling; what luck to finally understand the great master now. It was a uniquely Jedi philosophy, of course. Perhaps the Emperor would come across Obi-Wan’s old holotextbook in the ruins of the Temple and have a good laugh.

Close against the pump/CPU, he listened carefully to the humming of the vaporator and nodded at the buffers doing their work. Noise attracted pests just as much as the scent of water, and he had spent enough time working on getting the house machinery back on its feet to feel a sense of accomplishment. Enough time with a working pair of vaporators, and he’d have a good crop of mushrooms from their undercarriage to bolster his meals. Maybe even trade for a punnet of pallies.

Not such a bad farmer after all. He groaned with more air than sound as he rolled onto his feet and hands. His hood fell forward as he stood slowly, curling his spine up a vertebrae at a time and lifting his head up last. A bead of sweat dropped down the back of his neck. He looked out at the sands stretched all around him, broken only by the house on his left. The Force was here, as it was everywhere, as thick and as still as a mirrored pond. Its undercurrents tugged at his fingers in wavelets, the small lives of insects and tiny mosses that clung to rocks, no larger tumult for miles.

He frowned. When the Order had sent Master Sulis into seclusion, was this the answer she sought? “To each, a light. To each, a star.” When his mind drifted in meditation, he found himself becalmed. When he concentrated, the Force led him to the farm easily enough, to the comforting fog of Owen and Beru, and the bright bubble of Luke’s infancy, but on his own…nothing. He’d never known such privacy of thought. How odd to have craved what he now feared.

There were no hands at his back now. No need to keep anyone’s favorite ration bars in his robe’s pocket. No missions to plan, no missions to thwart. _“We shall be one in the Force,” _Bant had said._ “A missed holomessage or two is nothing.”_

Obi-Wan looked down at his hands and swallowed against the sudden heavy lump in his throat. He had never been a very good correspondent, but she’d sent them anyway. He’d been so annoyed when he’d found out that Cody was comming back to her.

_“A spy in my own chain of command!”_

_“With all due respect, sir. She sent para-rolls.”_

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. Damnable man had at least shared. He breathed in sharply and cleared his throat again. This was counterproductive, a maudlin exercise. A trick of deserts, he’d soon discovered, was that they enticed far too much idle thought with all that emptiness; you sought to reclaim the space beyond by filling it with your poor memories. It was a false indulgence. If the deserts of Tatooine could have been stuffed with substandard vagaries, the Hutts would have overflowed the Wastes decades ago.

He turned on his heel and walked back into his house. Inside, the lumas he’d stuck to the outer walls beamed coolly. The dust worms had eaten through the interior structure almost completely, and, once he’d disposed of the last colony, he’d discovered their boreholes had weakened a good deal of the lower cool room when he’d burned them out. Without a clear division of space, the living quarters were a tad closer to camping in GAR command tents than he was comfortable with. Any straggler coming in would note the regulation cot and blanket and the setup of the camp cooking facilities, complete with open ration box. Still, one must be efficient.

He stepped down into room. Thankfully, the foundation was durasteel plating from some abandoned freighter. Now he just needed to concentrate on building a livable space. He wasn’t leaving, after all.

He patted the scrap barrel he’d been filling in anticipation of the Jawas’ next visit. He almost had enough scrap that, coupled with the water he could spare, it might net him use of their fabricator. He checked the gauge near the sink. By midday, he should have enough water to bathe his face and hands as well as drink. No waste existed in the Force, just as it could not in the desert; it was a handy lesson.

He glanced at the crumbling partition between the original, larger sleeping area and the kitchen. The echoing burble of many fountains grew in the back of his mind, the cooling rush of mist when he stood too close to Ana—to an old, favored waterfall. Obi-Wan ran his hand over his beard, and crouched down next to the box of rations. No point in thinking of that place again; it was gone. “Discard all tokens, and half the journey is complete.” He was just Ben now, a farmer of no great ability. A lonely old man who nobody should pay any mind. Many beings ran to the empty places to disappear, and three lives depended on his ability to seem harmless. 

He set aside the prantha berry and picked up a powdered somis in its self-heating pouch. He set it on the small kitchen table to cook, and sat down on his lone chair to wait. He wrapped his robe about him. He was Ben Kenobi, the name of a thousand other beings, young and old, dead and living. He would work on his moisture vaporators. He would rebuild his old house. He would watch over his little charge and, finally, he would sink back into the Force. It was his destiny.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Strong Bones by missmollyetc](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28700517) by [originally reads (originally)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/pseuds/originally%20reads)


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